Newcastle United striker Callum Wilson has shared how Nick Pope reacted in the dressing room following his red card on Saturday.
Wilson shares Pope’s reaction after Newcastle red card
Speaking on his Footballer’s Football Podcast, Callum Wilson spoke about how Pope handled the situation when the players joined him in the dressing room.
It’s hard to imagine just how bad Nick Pope must have felt after being sent off for such a silly offence on Saturday at St James’ Park – a red card in the first half of the game is bad enough, but knowing that the resulting suspension would see you miss the club’s biggest game in nearly 25 years must have been devastating.
When he was asked how Pope reacted, Wilson said “You go in at half time and he’s showered and sitting there. You kind of console him and keep your head up and carry on with the game. There’s another 45 minutes and you need to get back into the match. So not a lot of words are spoken.
“He didn’t really say much. He was probably in shock himself when it comes round and the reality sinks in. It’s not just affecting the game there and then but it has a knock-on effect to next week. I feel for him. It is what it is, it’s happened, you can’t change it and you’ve just got to move on.”
Wilson shuts down Antonio before he can make a joke
For me this just conjures of an image of Pope sitting in front of his peg, staring into space, completely oblivious to everything going on around him. We’ve all had those out of body experiences when we get lost in our thoughts and it sounds like that’s exactly how Pope reacted in the moment.
It was great to see Wilson sticking up for Pope on the podcast too, when Michail Antonio started to try to make jokes about it, Wilson quickly shot him down saying “Mikey, be gentle, be gentle!” I love that because he could have just let Antonio say his piece for the cheap laugh, but he was on hand to defend his team mate, knowing how bad he will still be feeling.
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